World Without End
by Min Daae
Summary: Saviors work alone, but even they need their witnesses. Leading up to R2 25.


"Does the world get too heavy to carry sometimes?"

I asked him in jest at some point after he declared himself emperor, and he looked up at me with his strange, empty smile and suffering eyes and said "Yes, it does."

He always chose the worst times to be honest.

I alternate back and forth on whether Lelouch is incredibly selfish or incredibly selfless. He may be the one person I know who can be both. On the one hand, there's no getting away from the fact that he's sacrificing himself for the world he's always wanted and will never get to see. On the other hand, sometimes I can't help but think that this is all just some kind of incredibly elaborate suicide.

That would be just _like _him.

And that's selfish; selfish of him to drag me into it and make me a weapon against himself, and even more selfish that he gets to abandon the world and leave all of his pain behind _(and I do not)_.

He is growing tired. Every day seems to carve another slice from his body, leaving him skinny instead of slender. His eyes stare emptily into nothingness and sometimes I wonder if Lelouch is dead already, and his mind just hasn't quite gotten the memo. The closer he comes to the day when I'm going to kill him, the more he seems to find to do, writing endless notes of things that need to be done _(before I die) _and endless letters to everyone he knows _(that he'll never send)_.

I just watch, and witness, and wonder if this is how saviors always operate: alone, devoured by their life's work.

Saving the world. It's so grandiose, so cliché. Nothing less for Lelouch. No little goals for him, no step-by-steps or a little-at-a-times. For Lelouch it's always been grandeur and flash and a vision so grand that it hardly even makes sense. For Lelouch, it is _the world or nothing. _

Or for the Requiem, _the world and nothing, _because everyone else gets the world and he gets nothing, and that's the way he's designed it to be. In some ways I think that's selfish, too.

I sit down next to him with a plate of food I know he'll only pick at (at best). "So you're still going through with this?"

He doesn't even glance at me; we've had this conversation before. "You exasperate me when you repeat yourself. Everything's settled."

"Have you ever considered what happens if I don't kill you?"

I see his hands clench. "Should I have to?" I can hear the brittle note in his voice. "Do I need to remind you that you promised?"

"Maybe I've changed my mind." I push the plate toward him, giving up on subtlety. "If you're in such a hurry, it'd be better vengeance to keep you alive. Eat something."

"Don't be perverse, Suzaku." He picks up the fork, pokes idly at the rice. "Just think of Euphemia." He turns his head slightly and smiles that little empty smile at me.

I hate it when he does that.

He puts the fork down without taking a bite and pushes the plate away, turning back to his lists. "I trust you, Suzaku," he says, and then lapses back into his own little Lelouch world like I'm not even there.

Talking to him is like hitting my head against a wall and about as productive. I can't help but think it's a little sad that about the only thing he does seem to trust me with is his death. Not his thoughts or burdens or sorrows.

I don't think that Lelouch really knows how to be a good friend anymore. But that's Lelouch for you. Saviors work alone, and so do demons.

By the time he dies, there will be nothing left of Lelouch vi Brittania, I am certain.

He speaks of his death often, during the last week: _after I die…when I die…four days from now, I will be dead, _until it infuriates me and I yell at him in a sharp, breaking voice. "For god's sake!" I remember yelling, leaning forward and looking into his placid and careless face, "Stop it. _Stop it! _You'll only die once; don't make it happen every time we speak." _We have so little time left. Aren't there other things to say? _

He leans back away from me and blinks once; then he laughs, brittle and fragmented. "All right, Suzaku," he says, voice cold and bitter and mocking. "What shall we talk about? The grand old times? The Shinjuku ghetto? The Black Rebellion? Maybe the Princess Massacre?"

I fight the urge to reach across the table and shake him, yell the simple question _why are you so stupid? _I don't think Lelouch would get it. "This isn't exactly _easy _for me!" I yell at him. "It would just be nice to talk about something other than your death wish for a few minutes-"

"What, so we can talk about yours?"

It's in the viciousness of his voice, the cutting tone he uses and even the casual way he talks about it that I can tell that he's scared. Damn you, Lelouch. This isn't the kind of choice you can go back on, I want to tell him. Are you sure? Can't you find another way if you are afraid to die?

But he doesn't know I know he's afraid and it has to stay that way, for the sake of the Zero Requiem.

That's what everything's about, now, isn't it?

I sit down across from him while he plays chess with himself and watch the pieces move. There's something idle in the way he plays this time, far removed from his usual intensity and focus. But then, that's how he's been about everything lately – idle. Waiting. As though he's just passing the time until it stops.

It's enough to almost make me feel sorry for him.

"How long do you think it'll take them to realize?" I ask, suddenly.

He doesn't even look up. "Take who to realize what?"

"Your people," I say, because they are still his even if they don't know it. "How long do you think it'll take them to realize what you've done?"

He moves the Queen and takes white's rook, leaving her towering in enemy territory. I think of Kallen. "I think they've already realized, Suzaku. I made it fairly clear."

"No," I correct him, and on impulse reach out and move a knight to threaten the black queen, even though it's probably the wrong thing to do. "That's not what I mean. When do you think they'll realize what you're really doing?"

Lelouch shrugs. "They won't."

I could swear at him. For such a brilliant leader (I can acknowledge that) and a clever man, Lelouch is remarkably stupid about people sometimes. "You don't think _Kallen _will realize? Or Nunnally?"

I see him flinch. I guess he's still trying not to think about Nunnally. I don't blame him _(too much) _for that. "They won't realize." He pauses. "This isn't just wishful thinking, Suzaku. It's _imperative-_"

"They'll realize," I say, almost gently. "Not everyone's as dense as you about certain things. And they won't say anything _because _they'll understand. And it's not just Kallen and Nunnally either. Other people who knew you – even a little – will figure it out too."

Lelouch props his chin on his hands, his expression slightly bleak. "I'm not asking for recognition, Suzaku. Why does this matter?"

I let out a breath through my teeth. "How do you think they'll feel?"

"The same as they always have." He moves his queen out of harm's way, taking white's bishop. I wonder who that is. Luciano, maybe. "One small sacrifice does not change thousands of lies, wouldn't you agree?"

"Wasn't it always you who said that the ends justified the means?" I lean forward on my elbows. "You don't think they'll see that?"

"What is the point of this, Suzaku?"

"I just want you to think about it."

"I'm not going to change my mind," he says, and moves a knight I wasn't looking at. "Checkmate."

"I'm just saying," I try again. "Maybe it's not – _fair _of you to make this decision for everyone. Maybe you should-"

"Sympathy for the devil, Suzaku?" Damn him, and the way his eyes glitter as he smiles at me. "You're funny."

"Shut up," I snap. "Sometimes I wonder if you've even _thought _about other options. I want you to think about all the people you're deciding for. Me, Kallen, Nunnally – why is it that you get to decide for everyone what's best?"

"Because it is." He stands up, and turns away. "There is no other way, Suzaku. I know you'll do the right thing. As for the others…I thought we agreed that our lives were worth the world."

"Did you ever think that maybe you could atone better alive?" I ask, and he doesn't even deign to answer me.

"I am going to die, Suzaku," he says, as conversationally as if he were commenting on the weather, even though I can see his shoulders twitch, briefly. "I suggest you get used to the idea. The clothes are in your room."

And then he's gone, and I slam my fist down on the table in frustration. The clothes. The mask. Zero. He's made his mind up for me for the second time. _Live. _

Fine. He can spend his last night alone. What do I care? I need to find my own reconciliation. _Just think of Euphemia, _his voice says.

I've never known anyone who bore his burdens so completely alone. Except for maybe me.

The sword is lying on top of Zero's clothes when I return to my room. _How considerate of you, Lelouch. You really do have it all planned out, don't you? _On a whim, I go to the table where he's been spending all of his time, but all the notes, the papers, have already been burned; there's scorch marks on the concrete floor.

He really is determined to leave nothing but what the world wants to see. He probably burned all the letters, too.

"He's worried you're not going to follow through."

I turn around to face C.C. Lelouch's witch. I don't understand what their relationship is, or who she is, or very much about either of them at all, I think sometimes. Right now, I just stare at her, though. "How do you know?" Does he talk to you?

She shrugs. "I just know." Her head tilts, slightly. "So, are you?"

"Yes," I say, "I promised." _It isn't as though I have another life to go back to now. _

She nods, and then says, "I will be gone by the time you return, tomorrow." After it's finished, after Lelouch is dead. I know what she means.

"Is he sleeping?" I ask, after a moment. Maybe if he's asleep I can go and pay my last respects now. It's not as though Zero can pay the Demon Prince any respects, last or not.

"No," C.C. says, with a bit of a shrug, her voice aimless, apathetic. It reminds me of Lelouch's, in a way. Maybe a little less dead. "I don't think he sleeps anymore."

Doesn't sleep, doesn't eat. There won't be much for that ridiculously long sword to go through tomorrow, I guess. I can't decide if that thought's morbid or just true. She shakes her head at me.

"Go away, Suzaku. It's already over." She almost sounds sympathetic. I stare stupidly at her a little longer, until she comes over and gives me a shove. "Go sleep. Or pray. Or whatever your people do before something great happens."

"Great?" I say, a little strangled.

She pats my shoulder. "Not like that. You know what I mean. It's Lelouch, isn't it?"

Yes, I think, as she wanders off. Yes it is.

I know this is always how I'll see him. Back arching, eyes and mouth open wide. Like an idiot, he probably didn't expect it to hurt. Yes, this is how I'm going to remember him, bloodstained, eyelids fluttering, breath sliding out between his lips in a gasp.

It hurts, doesn't it?

Kallen is screaming something. The crowd is holding its breath. For the moment, though, it's just me and Lelouch, and I think that killing someone has never been so intimate.

I was right. It's like putting a sword through nothingness.

Even if he smiles as he slides off his sword, it's the pain I'll remember. _I trust you, Suzaku. _

Trust me with what?

_World without end. Amen; amen. _


End file.
